Clay College artists participate in the international One Million Bones project to demand an end to genocide. (Staff Photo by Cathy Cramer/South Jersey Times)

MILLVILLE — Next June, the National Mall in Washington, D.C., will become a mass grave.

Artists from across the globe are working together with the One Million Bones Project to cover the mall in faux-bones as a call for an end to genocide and to raise funds for the fight against it.

“It’s a social art project that we hope will raise awareness about these atrocities,” said Olivia Natale, New Jersey Coordinator for One Million Bones. “It will be our petition against mass genocide.”

As coordinator, Natale has been reaching out to schools and individual artists across our area, hoping to drum up support for the cause.

The project is working with Students Rebuild and the Bezos Family Foundation so that every bone made will be sponsored for $1, up to $500,000. The proceeds will be donated to CARE, an organization that provides emergency aid for survivors of wars across the world.

Natale made a call to Jacqueline Sandro, director of Clay College in Millville, to see if artists could use the college’s kilns to fire their bones.

After Natale explained the project to her, Sandro saw it as a great opportunity to get her students involved.

Clay College artists participate in the international One Million Bones project to demand an end to genocide. (Staff Photo by Cathy Cramer/South Jersey Times)

“It’s a great cause,” Sandro said. “We wanted to really get the whole college involved.”

Sandro said she did not know the exact number of artists that have made bones at the college, but said that more than 600 bones had been made at the school as of their last count, with many more on the way.

“We have a ton waiting to be fired,” she said.

On Nov. 10, Clay also invited other students from art schools in the area and individual artists to come make bones at the college.

Sandro said that the college doesn’t have a set goal of how many bones they want to make.

Her real goal is to organize a trip to Washington so that her students can help set up and see the final installation in person.

“We’re happy to be involved,” she said.

Having seen pictures of the preview installations One Million Bones has set up in Albuquerque and New Orleans, Sandro is excited to see the project in its final form.

"Being an art person, when you see a piece like this, it really catches your attention," she said. "You might say 'What's that about?' and as you learn more, you find out about what a great cause it is."

The previews both included 50,000 bones, and were big enough to fill large public squares.

While she believes one million bones will be enough to cover a very large portion of the mall, Natale said that the project will gladly accept more.

As for the bones themselves, artists can put their own personal touches like adding special designs or pictures, but they are meant to look as realistic as possible.

"They can be artistic to a degree," Natale said. "We want them to look real so they can make an impact ... we want it to represent a mass grave."

Along with its role as a fundraiser and an awareness-raising attention-grabber, Natale hopes the installation can be used as a teaching tool for the people who helped create the project and those that will see the final product in Washington.

A genocidal conflict in Sudan has killed more than 200,000 people since 2003, according to the One Million Bones website, and Natale said that atrocities like that need to be more well-known.

"Not a lot of people realize that these kind of things are happening," she said. "We need to be teaching kids from a young age that differences are OK.

"Genocide starts with an 'us versus them' mentality. We need to teach kids that we're all the same and we all share the same common humanity."

To reach its goal of one million, the Bones Project will need more artists to get involved.

"Someone might think 'I'm just one person.' but it takes a lot of ones to make a million," Natale said.

Anyone looking to get involved with Clay College's effort to contribute bones for the National Mall installation can call Sandro at 856-765-0988, or email her at jsandro@cccnj.edu